Barihunks Galore at 2019 Glimmerglass Festival

Justin Hopkins

The 2019 Glimmerglass Festival kicks off on July 6th with a slew of barihunks, including three for their opening night production of Show Boat.

The Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II classic, which gave us such immortal songs such as "Ol' Man River," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Make Believe," will feature Michael Adams as Joe Ravenal, Justin Hopkins as Joe and Glimmerglass Young Artist Charles H. Eaton as both Steve Baker and Max.

The world premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson's Blue will feature barihunk Kenneth Kellogg as the central character of the father. He'll be joined by Briana Hunter as the mother andAaron Crouch as the son.

Michael Adams, Kenneth Kellogg and Charles Eaton

Kellogg says of the piece on the Glimmerglass website, "[Blue] came at a point in my life, as a Black Man in America, I was feeling like opera wasn’t doing enough to address issues we are facing as a culture. Blue is the first piece I’ve been a part of that I feel I can lend my authentic self to in telling a real story that reflects the lives of people that look like me. The subject matter actually mirrored things and conversations that were happening in my life at the time, being a new father and dealing with the real fear of raising a Black Boy in America.”

Also at this year's Festival is Verdi’s La traviata, John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Britten’s Noah’s Flood, a talk by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a gospel extravaganza and Stars’ Night Out, featuring principal artists of the 2019 Festival. 

Ben Schaefer

Barihunk Ben Schaefer, who is a Glimmerglass Young Artist and new to this site,  is having a breakout season in his young career, singing both Figaro in The Ghosts of Versailles and Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades. 

Christopher Carbin

Also, new to this site is bass-barihunk Christopher Carbin, who is singing Narumov in The Queen of Spades and in the Ghost Quartet in The Ghosts of Versailles.  Carbin is a second-year young artist at Glimmerglass.

The 2019 Festival runs July 6 through August 24, 2019. All tickets are on sale now. For more information, visit www.glimmerglass.org.

Glimmerglass Festival to present "Silent Night"

Michael Hewitt

Barihunk and fitness guru Michael Hewitt will portray Lt Horstmayer in the Glimmerglass Festival's production of Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night. The cast also includes Conor McDonald as Ponhel, Jonathan Bryan as Lt Gordon, Wm. Clay Thompson as Father Palmer, Brian Wallin as the German General, Michael Miller as Lt Audebert, Mary Hangley as Anna Sørensen, Arnold Livingston Geis as Nikolaus Sprink, Christian Sanders as Jonathan Dale, Kayla Siembieda as Madeleine Audebert, Tim Bruno as General Audebert  and Dale Travis as the British Major. Nicole Paiement will conduct.  

Performances run from July 15 – August 23 and tickets are available online. 

Silent Night at Glimmerglass (Image: Glimmerglass Festival)

The opera is based on the screenplay Joyeux Noël by Christian Carion and recounts a miraculous moment of peace during one of the bloodiest wars in human history. On WWI’s western front, Scottish, French and German officers defy their superiors and negotiate a Christmas Eve truce. Enemies become brothers as they share Christmas and bury their dead.

The Minnesota Opera presented the world premiere of Silent Night in November 2011 with a cast that included barihunks Craig Irvin as Lieutenant Horstmayer, Gabriel Preisser as Lieutenant Gordon,  Mike Nyby as William Dale, Liam Bonner as Lieutenant Audebert, Troy Cook as Father Palmer, Joseph Beutel as the British Major, Ben Wager as the General and Andrew Wilkowske as Ponchel.

The opera has also been performed at the Washington National Opera, Opera North, Austin Opera, Arizona Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Fort Worth Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Calgary Opera, Atlanta Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Piedmont Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Opera de Montreal. 

Introducing Glimmerglass barihunk Jarrett Porter

Jarrett Porter

We recently featured a post about what we believe to be the largest single gathering of barihunks since we started blogging, as about a dozen hunky low voices are currently performing at the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York. A few of the singers in that post have not appeared on our site before, so we thought we'd start with an introduction of Jarrett Porter. 

Porter is currently a Young Artist at The Glimmerglass Festival, where he is singing Sam in Oklahoma! and covering the role of The English Spy in the American premiere of Donizetti's The Siege of Calais, under the direction of Francesca Zambello. 

Porter joins Arizona Opera for their 2017/18 season as a Marion Roose Studio Artist, where he will make his debut in the title role of Patrick Morganelli’s film-opera collaboration Hercules vs Vampires. Other roles with the company will includ Sciarrone in Puccini's Tosca, Maximilian in Bernstein's Candide, and Fiorello in Rossini's The Barber of Seville with fellow barihunk Jared Bybee in the title role.

Jarrett Porter sings Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen":

This past season Porter made his NPR debut with selections from Schubert's Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin with accompanist Taylor Hutchinson, and narration by Graham Johnson and Sir Thomas Allen. He was also seen in recital with Jake Heggie at the German Consulate of San Francisco in a program of Jake's newest works, including selections from his new chamber opera, Out of Darkness. 
 

Jarrett Porter

Recent roles have included the title role in Don Giovanni, Chevalier des Grieux in Massenet's Le portrait de Manon, and Sid in Britten's Albert Herring. He is the First Prize winner of the 2017 Pacific Music Society Competition, the Ellie Silver Award winner at the Holt Competition, and the recipient of the 2017 Pankonin Art Song Award.

World's largest gathering of barihunks at Glimmerglass?

Jarrett Ott, Michael Hewitt, Jarrett Porter and Brent Michael Smith (left) and Justin Austin (right)

Once again, director Francesca Zambello has deservedly landed on our site. Longtime readers know that most opera lovers credit her with beginning the barihunk craze and coining the phrase after having Nathan Gunn appear shirtless in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. Now she may have created the largest single gathering of barihunks ever assembled at the Glimmerglass Festival, where she is the Artistic & General Director, as well as the stage director for Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Donizetti's The Siege of Calais and Ben Moore's Robin Hood.

Norman Garrett in Glimmerglass' Porgy and Bess

There are at least a dozen barihunks who we know of in the various casts and probably a handful more that we've not been made aware of yet. Most of them have appeared on this site in the past. The Glimmerglass artists include:

• Norman Garrett as Crown in Porgy and Bess 

• Brent Michael Smith as the cop in Porgy and Bess; Ariodates in Handel's Xerxes; and the Commentator in Derrick Wang's Scalia/Ginsburg.

• Zach Owen as the English Spy in The Siege of Calais and the detective in Porgy and Bess.

• Jarrett Ott as Curly in Oklahoma! 

• Michael Hewitt as Jud Fry in Oklahoma! and Edoardo III in The Siege of Calais

• Harry Greenleaf as Cord Elam in Oklahoma!

• Jarrett Porter as Sam in Oklahoma!

• Justin Austin as Jake in Porgy and Bess

• Calvin Griffin as the Undertaker in Porgy and Bess and Elviro in Xerxes

• Conor McDonald as Skidmore in Oklahoma!

• Eric Shane covering roles in Oklahoma! and Porgy and Bess

The festival opened July 7th and runs through August 22. Additional cast information and tickets are available online.

POST UPDATE: We heard from some of the singers at Glimmerglass that we may have missed a few singers, including Makoto Winkler, Nicholas Davi, Carl DuPont and Adrian Timpau. We also made some casting updates to the list above.

Barihunk trio in Kansas City's Don Giovanni

Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni at NY City Opera

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City is opening its 58th season with Mozart’s Don Giovanni featuring the barihunk trio of Daniel Okulitch in the title role, Joshua Bloom as Leporello and Rhys Lloyd Talbot as Masetto. Performances are on September 26 and 30 and October 2 and 4 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available online. 

The trio are also all alumni of the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, with Daniel Okulitch taking part in 2002, Joshua Bloom in 2001 and 2003, and Rhys Lloyd Talbot in 2013 and 2014. Elizabeth Caballero, their Donna Elvira, was in the program with both Okulitch and Bloom. 

After Don Giovanni, Bloom will portray The Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in October at both Théâtre de Caen and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. Okulitch will head to the Manitoba Opera where he will sing Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Talbot just completed the Young Artist program at Glimmerglass where he performed the Speaker/Second Priest in Mozart's The Magic Flute and the Apparition in Verdi's Macbeth.

Ryan McKinny returns to Glimmerglass as Billy Bigelow

(Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)

Über-barihunk Ryan McKinny, whose photos from the Glimmerglass Festival's production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman last summer instantly went viral, is now appearing as Billy Bigelow in their new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. The production opened last night and runs through August 22nd. 

Performances on August 12 and 19 will feature the young barihunk Chris Carr as Billy Bigelow. The production also features Glimmerglass Young Artist Ben Edquist as Jigger Craigin. Edquist, who took first place in the Lotte Lenya Competition, is completing his Masters in Music at Rice University.

Ben Edquist

 

Ben Edquist as Jigger Craigin (Photos: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)

Carousel is one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most famous musicals, and was reportedly the composer’s favourite score. The show was turned into an MGM film in 1956 which starred Gordon McRae and Shirley Jones. The original 1945 Broadway production featured the legendary John Raitt as Billy Bigelow. Carousel tells the story of a carousel barker’s struggles to rise above challenging circumstances. The musical includes such favorites as “If I Loved You,” “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

Ryan McKinny as Billy Bigelow and Andrea Carroll as Julie Jordan (Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)

Carousel will run in repertory with Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Strauss’ Ariadne in Naxos and Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy.

For more information on the 2014 Glimmerglass Festival and performance dates and times, call the Box Office at (607) 547-2255 or visit their website.

 

L.A. Opera adds Streetcar with Ryan McKinny & Renée Fleming

Ryan McKinny in Der fliegende Holländer

The Los Angeles Opera has just announced that it is adding André Previn’s Streetcar Named Desire  to its 2013-14 season. Taking on the role of Stanley Kowalski will be Ryan McKinny, who just created a sensation in Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer at the Glimmerglass Festival. We didn't need much evidence, as our sexy photos of him almost doubled traffic to the site.

Joining the rising superstar barihunk will be Renée Fleming in the role of Blanche DuBois, instantly making this one of the hottest tickets in opera.  The performances are being presented in a semi-staged concert version on May 18, 21 and 24. 

Rounding out the cast are  soprano Stacey Tappan as Stella and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch Mitchell, a role he performed at the opera’s 1998 premiere. Tickets will be available online beginning on October 20th.

Sexy photos of Ryan McKinny's upcoming Flying Dutchman

Ryan McKinny as the Dutchman

Back in May, we mentioned that bass-barihunk Ryan McKinny would be debuting the role of Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Glimmerglass Festival. Although opening night isn't until July 6th, these amazingly sexy photos from photographer Karli Cadel indicate that this may be THE summer opera destination for Barihunks readers.  

Ryan McKinny backstage preparting the Dutchman

The production is directed by the Queen Mother of barihunks, Francesca Zambello, and also featured the amazing soprano Melody Moore as Senta. Performances will run from July 6 to August 24 and tickets are available online. 

 Ryan McKinny sings "Die Frist ist um" from The Flying Dutchman: